Tag: aspirations

This is one of my first attempts at poetry. I decided to give it a try after hearing the talented Hollie McNish perform her poem Megatron. It’s a new way of writing for me so any comments are appreciated. (NB this poem has nothing to do with giving birth or is anywhere near as good (as Megatron or giving birth!))

I’m having a midlife crisis, or perhaps I’m just indecisive. Because at 35, is life passing me by or is it just expectation telling me a lie?

That by now I should be getting somewhere or got there already, my career path on an upward arc, the angle holding steady.

A profession they like to call it or an occupation, you know, the thing that defines you when having a conversation.

You can see it in their eyes when you get asked the question, and answer that the thing you once studied isn’t included in your present direction.

That actually you’ve changed your mind, multiple times in fact with no fixed interest keeping you on track.

Why does it have to be that we are tied to one address, frowned upon if we move about and take up temporary residence?

What’s wrong with not following a single road, why can’t we veer and take in the view, stopping off if we feel like it and learning a thing or two?

Just don’t do it for too long, or else you’ll end up: what? No chance at being the CEO, stuck in a place that ambition forgot?

House prices are a joke, they say pensions no longer exist. Why take the trouble to grind the same old stone, who’s system is this?

So here’s to the indecisives, the start stoppers and the unsures. The ones who still don’t know, but continue to grow in several directions.

The chancers, the samplers, the in and outs, the toe dippers and the skimmers, the what’s it all abouts.

There might not be a mortgage receipt to show for it or a five star CV, but experience is golden and the memories are free.

In Neil Gaiman’s now famous 2012 commencement speech at the University of the Arts, he offers some excellent advice to free us from perfectionism, imploring us to simply create — to make art — no matter what. What’s wonderful about this advice is that it applies to any creative endeavour, regardless of whether your art form is writing, drawing, painting, sculpting, or découpage:

I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re Doing Something.

So that’s my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s ever made before. Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good…